May31st

The words “marijuana” and “brain damage” usually go in that order in medical literature. An Israeli researchers has flipped them around, finding that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, may arrest some forms of brain damage in mice. The loco weed already is favored by those who suffer from chronic diseases, not to mention fans of Cypress Hill, Bob Marley and the Grateful Dead.

But pharmacologist Josef Sarne of Tel Aviv University found that a minuscule amount of tetrahydrocannabinol may protect the brain after injuries from seizures, toxic drug exposure or a lack of oxygen.

The amounts wouldn’t qualify as much more than a second-hand whiff of kine bud – the quantity of THC is an order of 1,000 to 10,000 lower than that in a whole spliff.

The new dope on marijuana was published in Behavioural Brain Research and Experimental Brain Research, which are professional journals, not nicknames for HempCon or Burning Man.

Other researchers didn’t tend to Bogart the joint as much. They suggested using high — their word — doses within about half an hour after such injury. Sarne. . . . . READ MORE